Four members of a family were killed after a seven-storey apartment building collapsed early Wednesday in Gebze, a northwestern city in Turkey.

State-run TRT News identified the victims as members of the Bilir family — father Levent, 43, mother Emine, 37, daughter Hayrunnisa, 14, and son Muhammed Emir, 12.

Rescuers pulled out the eldest daughter, 18-year-old Dilara Bilir, alive from the debris, TRT reported. The bodies of the two younger children were recovered by Wednesday evening, while those of the parents were found overnight, Deputy Interior Minister Mehmet Aktas told reporters Thursday morning.

A total of 627 rescuers were deployed to the scene.

The cause of the collapse remains unclear, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. However, Gebze Mayor Zinnur Büyükgöz told local media that it might be linked to nearby metro construction.

Gebze lies along the North Anatolian Fault Line and was among the hardest-hit areas during the 1999 earthquake that killed an estimated 18,000 people across the region.

Experts have repeatedly warned that weak enforcement of modern construction codes continues to endanger lives in Turkey’s earthquake-prone zones.

Earlier this year, a four-storey building collapse in Konya left two people dead. Authorities later charged ground-floor shopkeepers for allegedly removing structural columns to expand their space — a risky but common practice. They could face up to 22 years in prison if convicted.

Source: AP